One Step Closer

2. Senior Year, Here We Come!

I woke up, got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast.

"Riley, what are you wearing?" I heard a familiar scream.

"Caroline! I didn't know you would be here," I said while taking a look at her outfit and her perfectly tamed blonde hair. I looked terribly underdressed .

"I told you to wear something nice and yellow."

"I am wearing a yellow tee Care."

"Ah Riles! C'mon. There's hardly any yellow in that. And what is wrong with your hair? It's the first day of senior year and you already look like you're halfway through the year."

"Caroline Parker!!!"

"Riley Mikaelson!!! Come with me , you're changing into something different."

With this she dragged me back into my bedroom, pulled all my clothes out of the closet and picked a yellow off-shoulder crop top for me.

"This top and a pair of blue jeans. That's what you need today," she said and started going through my accesories.

In the next few minutes, I was ready to go. I looked at myself in the mirror and actually liked the way I looked. Even though Caroline gets on my nerves sometimes, you gotta admit, she has a great fashion sense.

*******************************

"Geez! Don't you two look gorgeous," Liv exclaimed as we both took seats by her side.

"Coming from the queen herself," I laughed.

"Ofcourse I had to make some efforts, I couldn't just get out of the bed and be here. It's senior year." Liv whispered as Caroline gave me an 'I told you so' look.

I sighed.

"So what's our first class for the day?" I asked, scanning my schedule card.

" Española mi amiga ," Liv said.

"Yeah, about that," Caroline started saying in her convincing tone, "I dropped out of Spanish this year."

"Caroline," Liv and I exclaimed in unison.

"It was getting really hard for me, okay? Also I opted out of advanced algebra too. But on the bright side, I can now focus on theatre completely," she said with a bright face.

"Spanish and Algebra? Caroline, that means you're not with us for most of our classes," I protested.

"It's okay Riles, Caroline was flunking in those subjects anyway, but she's actually good at theatre," Liv said and Caroline hit her playfully.

"Okay, we need to get to our class. See you in Biology," I said to Caroline.

***************************

The morning classes were all just a blur. Senior year would be fun, they said. But all I got in half a day was homework and tonnes of essays to submit.

"So how was theatre today?" Liv asked Caroline while we all sat for lunch.

"It was really good. Miss Thompson told us about this annual school play that's gonna take place later this year. Auditions are open to all- even the non theatre kids. You guys can audition if you want to - its Romeo and Juliet."

"No," Liv and I said in unison.

"You might want to consider."

"Uhm no, we're good."

"It's actually a good addition on your college resume, you know?"

"You registered our names. Didn't you?" I said .

"Well, I might have," Caroline said with a puppy face.

"Caroline, I don't do drama-" Liv began and then her eyes shifted to the other side of the cafeteria. She had her gaze fixed on a brown haired boy. His electric blue eyes made him stand out in the crowd.

"Who's that?" I whispered in Caroline's ear, "never seen him before."

"He's new here. His name is Aiden, I think. We met in theatre today. I didn't get to talk too-"

"He's in theatre? Guess I'm auditioning for Juliet then," Liv beamed.

The rest of the day went on with a lot of classes. I swear I saw Aiden staring at Liv while Mr. Whitfield taught us ancient French history. Caroline freaked out in excitement when I told her about this.

I reached home to find a badly wrapped package on the doorstep. It had a letter alongwith that said:

Dear Riley,
I'm really proud of you. Good luck with your senior year. I couldn't call to wish you luck because I'm out of town due to work and the network connectivity here is really bad. Anyways, study hard and also, enjoy your life. Visit me whenever you can. Can't wait to see you graduate.

Love,
Dad

P.s- there's a small gift for you with this. I know you'll love it.

I opened the package and there it was. My favourite cookies from The Bakers. I couldn't help but shed a tear or too.
Typical dad, I thought.